The Mask of the Sun - Fred Saberhagen, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 2
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The Mask of the Sun by Fred Saberhagen
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Chapter 1. The Raising
^»
Key West, 1975
It didn't pay to reach too fast for gold.
Better to savor the still-possible dream for a few moments longer…
At low tide in this part of the Gulf, the white sand bottom was nowhere more than about ten feet below
the surface. A snorkeler could let his finned feet trail and for a moment imagine himself a soaring bird,
looking down on an unpeopled world and letting his thoughts roam as wild and fantastic as he liked.
When Tom Gabrieli's eye caught a single faint golden gleam from the trough of one winding sand-ripple,
hardly more than arm's length below, old habit made him slow his gliding progress to a halt, savoring the
dream still possible, before it turned out to be a yellow metal beer can dropped last Tuesday.
Then he reached down—the water was little more than four feet deep just here, and you could hardly
call the requisite maneuver a dive—and brushed away the sand. His fingers touched smooth, rounded
hardness that somehow, before he even tried to move the thing, gave an impression of substantial weight.
Throat muscles spasmed on his held breath when the first golden surface, broad and curved as a
cheekbone, came into view.
A moment later, he was standing chest deep in water, his snorkeling mask already pulled off and tossed
into the nearby boat. What he held in his shaking hands was a different kind of mask, of thick, solid gold,
with inlaid squares of ceramic decoration here and there. Realistic enough to be a life-sized portrait, with
the cheekbones broad and high, and the mouth curved in a subtle, lordly smile that might have been
meant to express hauteur and hatred instead of joy. The nose was hooked and decidedly masculine; the
nostrils, like the mouth, were closed as solidly as a statue's. The inlaid eyes, of some white stone or glass,
were a little more prominent than life beneath the heavy ridge of brow. At each temple, and again in the
center of the upper forehead, were golden flanges pierced with holes, through which straps or thongs
might have been strung—With a surging splash, Sally came up on the other side of the boat, and clung
there to the gunwale. Her own snorkeling mask was held in one hand, her blond hair coming out from
under its cap, strong sunbrowned arms and shoulders agleam with water above a yellow bikini top. Tom
Page 1
glanced at her, then brought his eyes back to scan the golden mask held in his hands. His senses
registered that Sally was calling something to him, but he could not really hear a single word… the mask
he held would not be wearable, not with those opaque eyes. Why, then, the places to secure a strap? Of
course it might be funerary; meant to cover eyes no longer seeing, a face no longer fit for others' sight.
On impulse, he lifted the gold face to his own and found his chin fitting neatly into an interior hollow while
the side flanges gently clasped his temples. And at once he discovered that the eyes were not truly
opaque. Darkly translucent, they transmitted a shimmer of faint rainbow light. He vaguely supposed this
must be some result of the sun on the miles of little waves that danced around him out to the horizon…
"Tom? What in the
hell
? Tom—?"
This time he heard her plainly. And at the same moment it flashed on him that someone else, in some
distant boat or aircraft, might be able to see him too—might just possibly be scanning with binoculars or
telephoto lens. He snatched the mask down from his face and plunged it into concealing water. Holding it
submerged, he turned to scan the horizon.
There were some clouds, and sun-hazed sky, and a million gentle waves upon the shallow waters. To
the east, the nearest of the Keys made a green smear along the boundary of sea and sky. Green would
be the mangroves along the water's edge, screening the buildings and other vegetation behind them.
"I found this, Sal." Reluctantly he brought it up again, held it above the water long enough for her to see.
"Oh, my God!" Sal had climbed into the boat, and was now leaning out of it on his side to look. Her blue
eyes were wide, and she had pulled off her cap, making her head a blond explosion. "Is it gold?"
"Just like that… ten times as much as I ever found when I was in the business. A hundred times. Sure it's
gold. Unless they're buried deep in the bottom, damn few things '1! last submerged in sea water for any
length of time. Pure gold is one."
He kept turning and turning it over in his hands, held just below the water's surface. Almost
unconsciously, he had turned his body so that the mask would be between him and the boat, thus
providing the maximum degree of shelter from any prying eyes. Of course he knew it was unlikely that
anyone was really watching him with a telescope. But still.
Tom said, "There'll be a couple of pounds of gold in this. A few thousand bucks just for the metal. But
the thing itself… it'll be worth a fortune."
"What're you going to do with it?" Sal's voice was quieter than before.
"Right now, put it away." He moved against the boat, snatched up a towel lying inside, wrapped the
mask quickly, and shoved it under a thwart. Again he looked around, unable to shake the feeling that the
state tax agents—or somebody—were already cruising toward him to take away his treasure. But there
was no one. No vehicle approached.
He quickly put his snorkeling mask back on and began to swim around the boat in an everwidening
search pattern, scanning the bottom as he had never scanned before. Nothing. Back at the very spot
where he had found the mask, he tore into the sand with hands and feet. Nothing.
At last he gave up and clung to the side of the boat. He said, "You look as if we just lost a fortune
overboard instead of bringing one up."
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 "Tom. If it's real, wouldn't there be a…a chest, or something? The wreckage of a ship?"
"No. No, not likely." He levered himself up into the boat, felt once of the hardness wrapped in the towel
below the thwart, and then started to take off his fins. ' "That's got to be from some Spanish treasure
ship. And it was four hundred years ago when they came up this way from Mexico and Peru. By now,
any wood is gone, completely rotted away."
"Peru's on the Pacific."
He got the impression that she
wanted
his find to be unreal. "Sure it is. But they brought the stuff in ships
up to the isthmus of Panama and lugged it across, then put it in different ships on the Atlantic side. Then
up this way, hugging the coast all around the Gulf. That was the easiest route men. But what with war and
pirates and storms, a good pan of their loot never made it back to Spain." Black-haired, black-bearded,
"his chest hair a dark mat slow-drying even in the sun, he worked with practiced hands at getting the boat
ready to head home.
Meanwhile the girl sat there holding her bathing cap and looking under the thwart.
He paused. "Look, Sal, I'm gonna split this right down the middle with you. And it can be worth a
fortune. For your pan, what you've got to do is keep this
absolutely
quiet. I know how these things work.
If we're good little citizens and tell everybody what we've found, the state government steps in, and they'll
rip us off for more than half. And it might be years before we get what little we're allowed to keep."
Sal had nothing to say, and she maintained her silence until the boat was moving and the Keys were
noticeably closer. Then she suddenly said: "I don't know if I want half."
Tom looked at her. "Sure you do. Later you will, if not right now. Look, I'm going to handle all the
business. All you have to do is keep quiet. If anyone should ever ask you, all we did today was swim and
snorkel and mess around. The subject of treasure never came up."
He swept his eyes hurriedly once more round the horizon, then bent and with one hand unrolled the
towel and lifted out his find. His fingers held it. Incredible. Wanting to get Sal more involved in this thing,
he asked, "You want to try it on?"
She had pulled her sunburned feet back as if to keep them away from the towel when it was being
opened. She didn't answer. But her body was tilting forward slightly, as if being drawn; her eyes were
fascinated.
Before handing it over, he raised it to his own face once again, seeing the watery light-ripples float in
through its eyes. Seeing—
He jerked the mask down from his face and sat there blinking at it in his lap. He rubbed his eyes.
"What's wrong, Tom?"
"Nothing." He gave the yellow weight to her. "It was like I thought I could see through the eyes. And
there was…"
"What?"
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 "Like a couple of men." He cut short his answer abruptly. When he looked up again from tending the
boat, Sal was sitting there holding the thing in both hands, her eyes wide and face solemn, a little pale
around the lips. He wasn't sure whether she had tried it on or not.
"Tom."
"What?"
"You're gonna want to kill me, but I wish you'd throw it overboard again."
"What?"
"All right, all right. But at least don't wear it anymore. I don't like the way it looks. And I don't care if I
get any money or not."
He reached for the thing, smiling with one side of his mouth and repeated. "You will, later on." He
wrapped the golden weight and tucked it far back under the thwart; a casual glance would not even
notice the towel.
Now some detail could be seen in the rim of vegetation ahead on the horizon. A couple of other islands
in the staggering chain were visible, along with the white tracery of the connecting highway bridges. On an
island to the south he could see a high-rise going up, looking as out of place as it would have at the North
Pole.
He had to say something about it, thought he really didn't want to: "I thought I saw my brother Mike, as
if he was sitting right there beside you…" He let his voice trail off. It had been too crazy. A white-haired
man's figure near Mike, and somewhere in the air behind them a huge golden sun-disc, and stylized red
daggers or lightning bolts in a circular pattern.
Sal took his revelation with surprising—no, disturbing— calm. She said, "I saw—myself, throwing the
thing overboard." She wasn't joking in the least, or even smiling. "Maybe that's just what I should have
done. You could have found it again if you'd tried hard enough. And that way you'd have believed
me—that I don't want the money. And you'd have kept me out of all of it from here on."
Tom shook his head. He had read somewhere that certain psychic disturbances could be contagious.
There had been epidemics of people thinking themselves possessed by demons . He said aloud, "Out of
all what? There's not gonna be any trouble, just some money. The light must come through in some funny
way, and you saw what you were thinking about anyway, something like looking into a fire. You'll take
money when the time comes, kid. You'll be willing."
After that they were quiet for what seemed a long time, riding the light chop between infinite sky and sea.
Only when they were actually coming into the harbor did he speak again.
"I'm going to find a good place to hide it, to begin with. And I damn sure don't mean to give it away."
"Why don't you call your brother about it?" Sal suggested after a moment's silence, sending prickles
down his spine through the July heat. He was certain he had said nothing to her about Mike's holding a
telephone in his vision.
"Why do you say that?" he asked. "You haven't even met him."
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 "Just the way you talk about him sometimes. He sounds—I don't know. Smart. Competent." She still
hadn't found the exact word for what she meant.
Tom smiled faintly. "He's lucky, is what he is. And if you think I have a mean streak, you should see him
sometimes."
"He doesn't sound
mean
, the way you talk about him."
"All right, he's not mean. Basically." And with that he had to get busy docking. As he worked, he could
catch glimpses of the masts of the treasure-hunting company's vessels, moored not far a way. If
they
ever
learned of his find, they would think it was something he had located while working for them and had
somehow managed to keep for himself till now. They would be putting in a claim. If that happened, Sally
could testify…but once the legal wrangling started, most of the money would be lost to him, one way or
another.
No, he was going to think positive. This time, for a change, he was going to screw the world. Maybe in
a secret sale he could get fifty thousand dollars for this thing. Then, even allowing for a split with Sal—say
he gave her fifteen, twenty thousand, that would be enough, more might scare her too much—he would
have a stake big enough to give him a fighting chance against the world. To get somewhere and be
somebody.
But maybe he could sell a thing like this for as much as a hundred thousand. To do that would for damn
sure take some hard bargaining. Nobody gave away that kind of bread. But he knew for a fact, from
stories heard when he worked for the treasure hunters, there were wealthy art dealers and collectors
willing to pay such sums and ask no questions beyond authenticating whatever they bought.
In silence he and Sal left the rented boat at the dock and went to unchain their bicycles from the
uncrowded rack. One thing about the Keys in summer—you rarely had to wait in line for anything. And
once you got through the bottleneck of the single connecting highway, heavy traffic was six cars coming
along without a break.
Tom had stuffed the wrapped mask along with other odds and ends into his habitual backpack. Sal still
in her bikini, himself in trunks and T-shirt—sweat-soaked the moment he put it on—they pedaled through
the humid heat, past weather-beaten houses, oleander, cheap bars, breadfruit, old and new motels, palm
trees, uncrowded beaches, bougainvillea, tourist-trade shops, royal poinciana, open-air laundromats. An
active little city, you could usually find what you wanted in it. The trouble was, despite all the
underground stories and rumors he heard when he was in the diving game, he had no names of any of
these wealthy and unscrupulous collectors, nor any way of getting in contact with them, in New York or
Chicago or wherever in hell they lived.
He could start trying to make contact by talking to some shady people he knew. He had in mind one
sometime drug dealer that he thought he could find, here on the Keys or in Miami Beach. Of course he
wouldn't trust that cat for a moment. And meanwhile, where was he going to hide the thing?
Following Sal, Tom climbed the narrow stair to her small apartment over a Spanish grocery store. As
expected, her roommate was out at work. Tom slipped off his backpack and stood there swinging the
promising weight of it by a strap while she closed the door and peeled off her bra and stood luxuriating in
the cool wash from a window air conditioner that had been left running.
Maybe two pounds of gold. He had to get it stowed away somewhere, then do some thinking. "I'll see
you later, Sal."
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